


half full

by Naolin



Category: League of Legends
Genre: (as slow burn as a oneshot can be anyway), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, No Plot/Plotless, One Shot, Romance, Slow Burn, Some scattered OCs I guess, Sylas is still a Mageseeker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:34:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28338528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naolin/pseuds/Naolin
Summary: Sylas is many things. For example: a mageseeker. For example: resentful of Luxanna Crownguard. For example: at his core, a bad person. For example: an unreliable narrator.
Relationships: Luxanna "Lux" Crownguard/Sylas
Comments: 7
Kudos: 50





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**Author's Note:**

> 1) Before Sylas Gets Blamed For A Murder, there are 'registered mages' and it seems that the Mageseekers already know about his magic the same way that the Illuminators know about Lux's. They used to let things slide a little more… But for the purposes of this fic, um… Don't think about that! Haha! … It's an AU. So saying "the oppression was As Bad As It Gets Later, but Earlier" shouldn't be a stretch. Right?
> 
> 2) Their dynamic in this fic still has some Rough undertones because of who I am as a person, (And who I feel Sylas is, as a person) but I am begging someone to write some proper noncon Sylux. I, apparently, cannot write what I desire the most. Why.
> 
> 3) This is my first time writing something in a word-processor that shows page-breaks. Um. Has everything I write always been so long? What do you MEAN fifty pages? I'm so sorry.

There's a girl.

Well, there are a lot of girls.

Sylas is a popular man; he knows that he's attractive and he knows that his job as a mageseeker is well-respected. The roles you play in Demacia are everything, after all. He has swallowed acidic self-hatred and spent every day of his youth crawling his way out of the dregs to fill this role, and for all that, it is sometimes unfathomable that the payoff is _this._

A lifetime of destroying himself, day by agonizing day. Breaking himself apart, tearing away pieces of himself like expendable body parts. Bloody, sinewy offerings to the Gods he resents, all to better fit a mold that he holds in just as much contempt. It's like climbing into an iron maiden by choice, each and every morning. Going about his day with spikes piercing him to his core.

And the payoff is this: Girls like him.

Sylas humors the city-girls, who whisper excitedly when the mageseekers come by. He feeds them just enough to gossip with, just enough to keep them chattering amongst themselves. That’s all entertaining girls really is. Giving them enough to entertain _themselves_.

They're clever things; they take his crumbs like permission to let their own minds run freely for once. They've been raised to recognize the strength of a wall and to stay on the right side of it, but with permission, with only a whisper, they weave themselves stories of what they would find most fascinating.

So there are a lot of girls. They flock around him, pretty little doves chirping and flitting about, all looking beautiful in their gilded cages. They curtsy his way and flirt in the shops, and let him humor their acts the same way they humor his.

There are a lot of girls.

But there is _a_ girl.

The first time he sees her is by the military barracks. The mageseekers are meeting with Tianna Crownguard for a briefing that is pure formality. Sylas blends into the crowd of his peers as well as he can, but knows that without the uniform he would look more like a soldier than a mageseeker. He is conspicuously broader than most of the men and women around him -- taller, too.

He follows the others up white stone steps. The light bounces off the steps, making them radiant under the clear sky, almost painful to look down on. It's a staircase made heavenly that he is sure others find different meaning in, but he walks these steps like they lead to a guillotine.

A shadow of birds flies overhead, brief reprieve from the sunlight and stone. It's over in an instant, and in its wake, the light is impossibly brighter.

It's the brightest magic he's ever seen in his life. Ever felt, ever touched. And it _does_ touch him. Even from twenty paces away he can feel it ebbing, overflowing from its source like a waterfall. His senses feel heightened, sharpened almost to the cusp of pain.

The source of it is unmistakable.

A pretty girl. Blonde hair that glows in the sunlight. Clear blue eyes that scrunch up as she laughs. Pink lips curled, almost hidden by a gloved-hand held delicately in front of her mouth.

The city is alive and bustling all around them. It feels as if the world is in slow-motion, but only for him. Everyone is noisily going about their day, but it's all a haze that exists beyond him, outside of him, outside of _her_.

He could swear he hears her boots clicking with each time-slowed step towards him. Her cheery voice, almost lost like buried treasure beneath the sounds of a crowd: "Oh, come now, brother. It wasn't so bad."

The man beside her laughs, murmurs something back.

Sylas knows them, he realizes. Both of them. Crownguards.

His feet are moving automatically. Nothing feels real in the shadow of that brilliant light, in the wake of that kind of magic. He almost can't believe he's getting closer, that she will be in touching distance soon, if only for a fleeting moment as they pass each other by.

The girl's eyes scan over the crowd of mageseekers with a barely-concealed apprehension. Their entire career is a sham, Sylas thinks. A ruse. A pathetic imitation, if not _one_ of his peers has noticed her. Or worse, if each and every one of them would forsake their supposed ideals for her family name.

Their eyes meet.

His heart stops beating, stilled by the ache of jealousy for what is inherent to her. The depth of this longing is too vast to comprehend, and as a man who has spent his whole life stifling what he wants, this startles him. He doesn't know what his own expression is, grateful that at least half his face is hidden by his mageseeker's mask, but hers fractures like a woman accused of witchcraft. She is no actress. Her footsteps falter. Her shoulders hunch in and her gaze drops to the ground.

"I'll do better next time," she says to her brother, clearly trying not to sound so subdued.

Sylas feels the frightful pulsing of her mana. It spills out, suddenly more clumsy, like an attempt at stifling from someone with no clue how. A leak, contaminating everything around her. Herself, her brother, the steps, _Sylas_.

The mageseekers around him have never been his allies, but for the first time in years, he fears them with her.

She feels like a trap laid to trick him. A noose made of thorned vines, her mana prickling him, stabbing into his skin to make him spill his own magic blood. His blood feels hot inside his flesh, boiling, trapped.

He passes her with his teeth grit in a fury that takes hours to pass. But the girl - the girl passes in an instant.

***

He takes to eating his lunch outside as the Summer brings reliable weather. He sits on the steps and watches the bustle of the street bazaar from above.

Civilians carry about their day, and he watches each and every little thing they do. He watches the things they do because they know they are being watched, and the things they do because they think they are not, and he wills himself to feel anything more than a vague sense of isolation and bitterness.

The only times his wish is granted is when he sees mages. Their mana always stifled, but still clear to him. Like a ribbon tied between them that he could pull on to draw them closer, if the world were not such a dangerous place. A ribbon like that can only ever become a noose, and so he lets it rest, untouched.

He likes to watch the way they move, at least. Likes to see how natural their smiles seem when they are living a lie like he is. It does not make him feel any less bitter, but it does make him feel less alone, if only in a voyeuristic way.

A farmer who comes in with a caravan of produce, all enchanted to grow faster and bigger. She wears thick glasses and gives away half her product for free. A fool, but she knows how to speak of gardening with knowledge too precise to raise suspicion.

A young mother who shops each day for each meal, carrying her son on her hip. She consults him on ingredients, lets him pick them himself. He says that some plants _speak_ to him, and she does not let the panic touch her face before laughing it off as a child's nonsense.

A pair of lovers, each working at a shop across the street from each other. Sylas cannot hear what they say to one another -- but no one else can, either. No one else knows the reason one laughs quietly to themselves as the other smirks when they are too far from one another to speak with their voices.

The Crownguard girl.

She is alone as she climbs the steps towards him.

Sunbeams streak through his vision and outline her in gold, like the Goddess would not let her hide even if she wanted to. Would not let him go without noticing her.

Away from the crowds this time, he really does hear heels clicking with each step. Her silver armor glints; golden curls of her hair bounce as she moves. She's carrying a box in her arms, wrapped in white fabric with golden trim.

Blue eyes forward.

Sylas tries to look away.

Her magic is so overwhelming that he cannot eat, cannot think. The ribbon of mana pulls taught between them like he has yanked it with all his strength.

He feels her magic pulse as she steps beside him. He can't help but look up, expression masked into disinterest. He's startled to find her eyes already looking down at him.

Poor timing. A stolen glance on her part. Her eyes dart away with guilt.

She passes him. He does not turn to watch her go, but knows by her footsteps that she has turned towards the military barracks. The ribbon pulls and pulls, and in anger he wants to tear it to shreds. Wants this imaginary connection between them to pull so tight it severs completely.

He finishes his lunch and leaves to avoid seeing her on her way back.

***

It happens at least once a week. Not every day, and the days she does pass by do not follow any pattern that Sylas can grasp.

But at least once a week, she climbs the steps. Most times, she refuses to look his way save for one guilty moment. Like she cannot quite help herself. Sometimes she nods to him with a smile that doesn't reach her eyes. She employs her good manners to blend in, begging them to mask her terror, and Sylas cannot fathom that this has worked out for her as long as it has.

He does not smile back, and eventually she does not bother with the pretense.

Her magic is so bright. Achingly pure. Unrestrained. _Infuriating_.

There are days she brings lunch to her brother, then leaves shortly after. Other days she brings nothing, and the two descend the steps together to seek out a café. It's a routine so reliable that Sylas understands it well from only snippets of overheard conversations.

This is what he knows:

Her name is Lux.

Her magic is stronger than any other he has ever felt.

She and her brother are not very close.

Neither of them have realized that her brother has magic, too.

She likes travel and flowers.

Her mother wants her married soon.

And she is not a very good cook.

***

Sylas stands up straight, his arms behind his back.

Before him, another bustling crowd that he is in and apart from. He stands by the pale walls of the castle and tries not to think about the mess of magic embedded in them. The mix of it all, as diverse as the crowd of people in the expansive ballroom. Just as overwhelming. Just as dizzying.

He has never enjoyed these galas, no matter what the celebration is. The promotion of someone in power to gain yet more power, usually. Someone who will only ever look down on the very people they command as if from a tall mountaintop, never understanding that without the people, that authority would mean nothing.

Sylas often daydreams about these people having to live a day in the life of those below them. Not just himself, who is one of a dozen mageseekers. Faceless and not. But one below even that. One who he grew up with and left behind in the dregs. He'd like to see one of these ridiculous nobles survive in the dregs, because he knows that they _wouldn't_ survive.

"Such a scowl," Marsino says, beside him. "It's a wonder you're so popular with the girls."

Sylas does not look at him, does not tear his eyes away from Tiana Crownguard, across the room and whispering in the prince's ear. "Girls aren't so shallow as to be discouraged by a frown," he says, idly. "They know too well the frustration of being expected to smile through their boredom."

" _Boredom,_ " Marsino scoffs. "We celebrate the season of color, what is there to be bored by?"

"It's a prelude to death," Sylas says. "Whoever decided that Autumn is more colorful than Summer was a blind optimist, and the Winter is always grey."

Vannis joins them, then, handing Marsino a glass of champagne and looking curious.

"You could do with some optimism," Marsino says.

"And yet," Sylas says flatly. "I'm not blind. I know too well the impact the loss of the farmlands will have this Winter."

"The farmlands aren't lost," Vannis says. "Only those mages that masqueraded so shamelessly as hard-working farmers. Tianna Crownguard has been in negotiations to let a new family take over the land."

She is always referred to by her full-name among the mageseekers. She is the wife of the head mageseeker they serve under, but Sylas often feels as if they report to her. He is grateful for the way his sour expression will be dismissed on the grounds of personality alone. But he knows the limits of it. He has to keep the disdain from his voice as he says, evenly, "Her judgment has impressive reach, as always."

"There's no use fretting over successful missions," Marsino says, easily. His glass is already empty. "Our job is done and justice was delivered. Demacia is strong enough to make up for _one_ farm losing _one_ season."

"If it weren't, parties like this would be distasteful," Vannis agrees.

Sometimes Sylas wishes that there were secrets behind Vannis's words. A familiar anger, just beneath the surface, and a truth on the other side of the thin line of his cold personality. He wishes that Vannis, like him, wore a second mask beneath the first.

But Vannis looks at Sylas with a stern frown. He means what he says and disdain is at the idea of it, not the truth. "Do cheer up."

"I'll brighten when the weather does," Sylas grouses, and Marsino's light laughter keeps the shadow of fear at bay.

He tears his eyes from Tianna Crownguard, giving the room another once-over. Golden light pours from chandeliers in blurred patterns, the glass in the air twinkling. Pretty girls dance with their dates in slow and simple steps, circular, circular, like water down a drain. The music plays, and the nobles whisper.

This is how you can tell the powerful from those who _think_ they are powerful.

A dozen men and women break off into smaller groups to talk of unrelated matters.

The soldiers, the mageseekers, the nobles-in-name, do not. They mingle with one another, dancing and eating and laughing. Singing and talking.

It's still pretense, Sylas knows, but better than the ones who come to a gala to make deals. Nobility uses conversation as strategy, uses parties as opportunity. But at least they have the dignity to pretend otherwise and put their goals aside for _one_ night.

All Sylas wants to do is speak to no one, go home, and go to bed.

The ribbon pulls tight, like it's been tugged. His chest tightens before he even looks up, and he isn't sure if it's panic or pain, but -- Lux is on the steps. He can see her clearly in the split of the crowd, flowing skirts stepping to the side of her like curtains drawing open.

She is sitting at the bottom step, one of her high-heeled shoes set beside her and a gloved hand on her ankle. Cinderella, Sylas thinks, foolishly. His eyes dart to her expression to gauge the situation, and he doesn't know why; he doesn't care whether she has drank too much, or simply tripped and embarrassed herself.

She is laughing. Her blue eyes are bright when she looks up at one of the girls flocking around her. He cannot hear her nor read her lips, though he tries.

One of the other girls crouches down and offers her a small bandage for her heel. Her shoes, beautifully decorated though they may be, must have simply hurt her after too much dancing. He watches as Lux covers the back of her ankle with the bandage, then slips the shoe back on.

Another girl offers her a hand. Those crystal-slippers have too much heel on them for her to stand on her own. Sylas watches the way Lux hesitates before accepting the help up. She is hardly on her feet again before she is being pulled off by the group of them.

But her eyes slice in his direction. Across the ballroom, for just one moment. They look at each other. Her hair is pulled back into a tight bun, and woven-through with pearls. Her white dress is decorated with lace and ribbons, and his first thought is that it looks too sheer to be keeping her warm. Then he notices the pink flush on her bare shoulders, the body-heat from her own flock of girls.

He doesn't look away. She doesn't either; her lips part from the smile for her friends to a look of confusion. Her brow furrows for a split second--and then she is pulled behind a crowd, stolen from his sight.

"You'd best stay away from that one," Vannis says, apparently following his gaze.

Marsino makes a sound in the back of his throat, as if having choked on the drink he has long-since finished.

"I know where I stand," Sylas murmurs.

Vannis looks at him sidelong, and Sylas does not give him the satisfaction of returning the look. "Where you stand is only half as important as where you are born."

Sylas feels the anger, hot beneath his skin. He pushes it down, and it only seems to condense into a more solid hatred, but there is nothing more he can do.

"So my roots are too poor for her," Sylas says, easily. "All for the better."

"Not your type?" Marsino asks, sounding as if he desperately wishes he had said nothing at all, but was forced by his desire to lighten the mood.

Vannis laughs. "Sylas doesn't like them young."

"Ah," Marsino says. "Well."

Sylas considers throwing himself out the window to escape the conversation, then considers getting himself a glass of champagne, instead. He has never drank alcohol before. Lowered inhibitions are not a risk one can take. A server passes them by, but Marsino is the only one to pluck another glass from their tray.

Sylas shrugs. "Unlike some men, I am not so unlikable that I need to rely on a young girl's inexperience and naiveté to earn her favor."

"It isn't bad to be a _teacher_ of sorts," Vannis says. "To show them what they like."

"Projection," Sylas says, dismissively.

Marsino drinks his entire glass in one go. Even Vannis seems vaguely alarmed.

"There's something to be said," Marsino says, face-flushed, "for the impatience of aged women."

"I'm leaving," Sylas announces, grateful for the opportunity to present this as being flustered by a joke. He hears both of the older men snickering in his wake as he makes his way to the front doors.

Maybe he could have picked up a girl for the night. Some women had talked to him earlier in the evening, but he had known it was too early to make mention of leaving the ball already. His departure is in poor timing, then, but he is not so desperate.

He usually prefers to be alone, anyway. Entertaining girls only keeps his good mood if he was already in one, and the castle has dragged him down.

The air of the night is much colder than he had expected. It hadn't been so chilly in the early afternoon. After a room of celebration, of bodies moving and breathing together, it freezes him to the bone.

If it is this cold to him, he cannot imagine how Lux feels in that thin dress of hers.

She is standing alone, having abandoned her friends to lean at the base of a statue of the Goddess. As if she is ducking out of sight from the gates. Her arms wrap around herself tightly; when Sylas meets her eyes they are filled with dread.

Good, Sylas thinks at first. She should fear him. With magic like hers, she should never let her guard down -- for anyone. You don't stop hiding just because you haven't been caught yet. You keep hiding - forever. You have to. It's complacency that gets you caught.

But this is more fear than he is used to seeing on her face. He notices, now, that her cheeks are lightly flushed. He can't be sure if it's alcohol or the cold.

His eyes drop down to her chest -- to her arms crossed over it. To the fingertips of her white gloves, and the prismatic glow just barely, barely pushing through the fabric.

His heart hollows; the ribbon squeezes it tight.

Her plea is silent, but he knows what she wants from him. To know nothing, to say nothing, to leave her alone. And to help her.

He feels dizzied by the magic in the castle walls, held captive there for lifetimes. Her light, though, _her_ magic, is a beacon. Like a lightning strike of clarity in the haze.

She is at a gala and she cannot even hide her magic, here. She is going to die, Sylas thinks to himself. She is going to get herself killed, one way or another if she doesn't learn to conceal herself. Her family name can only protect her for so long.

Lux is the one to break the silence, her voice barely a whisper. "I know that you know."

He does not bother to answer this, just like he does not bother with formalities. He is not stupid enough to linger here with her in front of the castle on the night of a ball.

"Go home," he commands her. "And meet me at the vacant farm at sunrise."

He does not stay long enough for her to ask questions.

***

She shows up.

This surprises him. Angers him.

She shouldn't risk strange meetings with mageseekers -- it's so foolish that it's infuriating. She should know better. She _must_ know better. But she came, as far from prying eyes as he could think. To a sprawling field of land on the city-limits. Unoccupied farm-lands that spread too far to be watched.

The sun has barely reached the horizon line.

Lux stands hesitant in the morning mist, color stolen from her by the thick fog between them. Her hair is not angelic gold, today; her eyes do not reflect the sky. She looks small and afraid, with damp strands of hair stuck to her cheeks and neck like dull thread threatening to choke her.

For a long moment they assess each other in the silence. Sylas steps closer, through the fog. Close enough that her color comes back for him. Vibrant again, she meets his gaze with a mix of defiance and fear. Her magic pulses in a steady rhythm, like he can feel her heartbeat.

"You shouldn't have come," he tells her, voice low to hide his own anger. He will admit to a vindictive satisfaction at being obeyed, but she lacks self-preservation. Mages who would make targets of themselves are beyond his help.

"You… Would have captured me if you were going to," she murmurs. Too quiet. Not confident enough to be acting on those words alone.

He just watches her, lips pulled thin in a frown.

She buckles under the glare, weak-willed. "Are you going to tell me to run away?"

"Is that what others have done?"

"It's what I would do."

This gives him pause. "Have you?" He asks.

"What?"

"Have you told others to run?"

Her eyes dart away from his. Her bottom lip pulls between her teeth for a moment as she is caught between honesty and fear. Eventually she shakes her head. "I would if I were braver. But I can't… Take that risk."

"You took that risk today," he points out, watching her flinch beneath his steady gaze. "Why?"

She shakes her head in lieu of an answer. "Why did you ask me to meet you here if you were going to scold me for complying? Just what makes you -- who do you think you are to _test_ me like you're so superior?"

"I'm brave," Sylas lies, stepping closer to her once more. He wants to scare her. He doesn't know why. It isn't for her own good. He isn't so kind.

Her magic pulses with her nerves. They are quiet under its rhythm, until finally Lux begins to peel off her gloves.

He doesn't register what she's doing until it's done, and both her gloves are on the ground between them. She holds her palms up for him to see, both of them spilling a radiant light like dripping water. Horror creeps up his throat, closing it up as if to keep him from breathing. This visceral reaction to magic hasn't struck him in nearly a decade.

The light pours and pours and pours, effortless and unyielding. As if the well her mana draws from is infinitely deep. As if she wants to be caught, as if she's never thought to hide in her life.

He grabs her wrist roughly. His hand circles around it with ease. She's small -- fragile. His thumb presses against her palm, covering the light in just one spot. Not enough to hide it, not enough to keep her safe, to keep _anyone_ safe.

"What are you doing?" She whispers, curling backwards in on herself like a child frightened by thunder. She tries to pull her wrist out of his grasp, but it's no difficult thing for him to hold fast, to keep her glowing palm held up between the two of them.

"What are _you_ doing," he demands back, just as quiet -- just as vehement. "You're going to get yourself caught."

"You think I don't know? You think I don't live every moment of my life in fear? I can't help--"

"-- _Learn_ ," Sylas snaps harshly, and lets go of her wrist as she flinches away from him.

"How?!" Her blue eyes dart all around them in fear of her own volume. More quietly, she mutters, "I've nothing and no one to learn from. I don't know how to teach myself to cease to _be_ myself."

He doesn't have an answer for her, but even this hypocrisy doesn't quell the burning frustration in his gut. He can't understand it, can't make sense of himself. He's sentenced girls younger than her with a careless word and managed his guilt, before. Buried it so deep that he is hardly conscious of it past the awareness of dirt piled in his heart. He should not care what happens to _one_ silly noble girl, _one_ so lucky as to be born behind relative safety. All she has to do is hide it in public, and she cannot even do that.

She holds one hand in her other, up to her chest. The prismatic light is pulsing, shimmering in the mist around her. It dances on her cheeks and in her eyes -- catches glint in her tears as they well up and spill.

This time Sylas flinches back, not knowing what to do with this. It isn't her tears -- though he feels off balance seeing them, too -- but the look on her face. It's an expression of frustration more than anything else, her brow furrowed and her teeth grit, like she would stubbornly tear her own heart from her body if she thought that it would help.

"Stop that," he demands.

"You stop that," she repeats. He would laugh if not for the way her magic pulses with her indignation, threatening to cast more light on their secrets. A moment later she whispers: "I don't know how. I don't know how to make it stop. Sometimes it's just as if I'm overflowing."

"Breathe," Sylas says, and she shoots him a glare like this is the most painfully unhelpful advice he could have possibly given her.

"Do you think I had stopped?" She snaps. She looks down at her hands, opening and closing her fists like she could catch the light inside them if she did it with enough precision. There is a hysteric lilt to her voice when she cries, "Just turn me in, then!"

"I won't," Sylas says firmly, so sudden that he surprises himself.

Lux pauses, like her surprise has managed to subdue her panic all at once. She squints at him, her suspicion rekindled. "What kind of mageseeker are you, that you want to keep my secrets for me?"

He holds his tongue.

He would like to tell her, with as much indignation as she's faced him with, that he does his part to keep all mages safe. That his role lets him protect.

Sylas would like to be a much better man than he is.

But the truth is that he is a mageseeker like any other. He knows that coin will buy silence, and through careful conversations of metaphor and subtlety, he allows nobility to buy their safety when he can. The poor cannot afford the luxury -- and Sylas cannot afford the risk.

Not often, anyway.

Not enough to feel good about it.

"I'll teach you," Sylas says, knowing his tone is too harsh to invoke kindness.

He isn't surprised when she only stares at him.

He reaches for her, and she takes a step back. "This is a trick."

He has closed the gap before he realizes, already holding her wrist again as if to punish her for trying to avoid it. He feels her try to yank herself away once more, and the terror in her eyes churns his stomach. He sees her looking up and down his body like she is assessing a threat. Like she is assessing what _sort_ of threat. It makes his grip twitch, unintentionally squeezing down harder; both of them wince.

"What are you doing," she whispers again, without the inflection of a question.

He does not answer her in words. Instead he just takes.

He steals the glow from her palms, like a leech sucking blood from her veins. The light held between them goes dim, fading away, then glowing again like renewed embers from his hand.

He feels her trembling.

Her magic is powerful -- he had already known from a distance, but to feel it for himself is a whole other matter. There is so _much_ of it to take. His mind races as it floods him. How could he be satisfied with just one touch? How could anyone survive without magic when it feels like _this_ ? Warm and kind, and powerful enough to feel like _true_ safety.

Drawing her light for himself is like trying to empty a flooded boat while the unpatched hole grows wider with every moment. Drawing her light for himself is like finding an oasis in a desert. For a delirious moment he is certain that he can never let go.

"Stop it," she says, weakly.

It takes him a moment to process the words through his haze, but when he does he pulls away.

She steps back further, this time. Five paces on legs so shaky that on the sixth step she falls down into the dewy grass. The sight of her without a glow is surreal. She stares up at him, her eyes wide, lips parted. She is just a girl, now. Nothing special at all.

Sylas holds her light in his palm and lets it dissipate with practiced control.

"You cured me," she says, her awe laced with horror.

"It's temporary."

Her voice trembles. "Give it back."

"I can't. It will come back on its own."

She does not rise back to her feet. Sitting in the grass, she looks all around her, as if she might find scattered fragments of her own magic at his feet to pick back up. Her hands are in the air, like feeling for rain fall -- as if those rainbow shimmers in the mist might come back to drop into her waiting palms.

"Do you feel lighter?" He asks, watching her.

"Yes," she murmurs, not looking up to meet his gaze. "No."

Sylas arches an eyebrow. "Which is it?"

He knows that he should be more sympathetic to the plight. He's never experienced it himself, after all. Never had his magic drained from his body in full. Only by proximity to those walls, and even then it's just a dull thrum beneath his skin. A shortness of breath, as if the air is too thin.

Lux looks helpless on the ground. A broken doll, a marionette with strings cut as her hands drop heavy onto her lap.

"I don't know," she says. She looks up at him with frightened eyes, such an achingly sincere shade of blue -- and she's still the most beautiful girl he has ever seen in his life. He supposes it says something about himself that he only admits this now that she is crumpled in the grass, her light burned out and cheeks stained with tears.

As if he hasn't thought it every time she walked past him in the city, hair aglow with sunlight and silver armor shining. Every time their eyes met and she looked away quickly, her plush lips pursing tight. Every time he heard her laugh with her brother, melodic, as if all her anxieties were briefly forgotten.

Every time he saw her tilt her head skyward, blue eyes on blue sky, smile curling her mouth like she was home, like she could be at peace in this kingdom as long as the weather gave her its blessing.

Sylas has been telling himself that he is not so foolish for a very long time. He resents her, for a flash, for making him this way. But he resents himself more for allowing anyone that kind of control over him.

Lux pushes herself up off the ground the moment before he thinks of offering a hand. He is sure she would not have taken it, anyway. Her body is loose, curled over herself like she is hollowed out. Her arms cross over her chest, her fingers digging into her own arms as she hugs her own arms, like she could hold what's left of her magic inside. Keep him from taking it, keep it from spilling out.

She's young, Sylas reminds himself. The thought feels wrong in his mind, like something rotten and festering.

She is watching him warily. He's overstepped boundaries. She looks at him as if she'll never forgive this, even long after her magic has replenished itself anew.

"Never speak to me again," she whispers. The sun is rising, light slowly cresting across her face. She turns towards it and leaves him there, alone in the mist, in the daylight.

***

She still passes him on the white stone steps where he eats his lunch. Still passes by a second time with her brother in tow, moments later. Sometimes a third and fourth time, returning him to the nearby barracks after their lunch together, then leaving back the way she came in solitude.

The weather has started to turn. The mist of the morning takes longer to dissipate. Some days Sylas eats his lunch outside and resumes work with clothes damp, and this is to say nothing of the days with rainfall. Like today.

Sylas doesn't mind the chill. He likes the sound of the rain and likes to see it paint all the white statues of Demacia dark.

Sylas looks up to see Lux approaching him, her gloved hands holding tight to the handle of her umbrella. For once, she does not brush past him with the ease of a stranger.

For once, they are alone, here. Ill weather permits them to be.

Lux steps up to him, so close that she is nearly between his spread legs. He looks up at her -- at the unreadable expression on her face; her blue eyes cold and glossy, and her lips softly parted for her breath. Her hair is wet despite the umbrella, and sticking to her red cheeks. The rise and fall of her chest is just a touch too dramatic for a simple flight of stairs.

There are shimmers of light catching the wrists of her armguards, just barely spilling from under her gloves. They are dull. Like a rainbow lost among murky clouds, the kind you have to squint to see at all.

It's long-since been enough time for her magic to return to her.

"You're sick," he says.

"I'm fine," she mutters, stubborn.

They are at an impasse while she stands before him. There is no expectancy on her face, but she does not move or speak again. Sylas is sure that she intends for him to do so first.

All he can think to do is ask, "What are you here for?"

"Lunch with my brother," she answers easily. "As always."

"Then go retrieve him."

Lux nods, but does not move.

A moment passes, then another. The only sound is the rain, all the noises of the buildings well-kept by closed doors and windows. There is no distant bustle of market-street, nor civilians enjoying the outdoors. Just the sound of rain hitting the ground and splashing into puddles. Crashing into itself, making ripples.

"Would you cure me again?" Lux asks, her voice cracking with the plea.

He does not remind her that she told him not to speak to her -- not even to gloat that it was her who came to him. He just looks at her, with her slightly mussed hair and fever-flushed cheeks. He feels sorry for her, like a wounded animal. Like something pitiful.

"I can't cure your fever."

"I know," she mutters. "But I'm tired and I'm hot and I'm cold, and I can't… Sometimes it's so dim, but other times it bursts bright. I can't regulate myself. I'll pay you. However much you want."

This is dancing with fire. This is tempting fate, balancing atop the thin line between the life he has built and complete ruin.

He has swallowed his guilt and kept himself safe. He has turned his back on the young and the old. On the rich and the poor and beautiful and the ugly. She should be no different.

But she whispers, "please," so softly that he shivers. The hairs on the back of his neck stand up straight. His fingers twitch, as if hit with a compulsion cut off so quickly that it did not reach his mind.

He looks at her, with her chest heaving and her glossy eyes watching him, unwavering.

Sylas is the one to break away, looking sidelong down the shadowed corridor. He sighs.

"This evening."

Her smile is half grimace. She knows this is not a victory. Having to ask is already her own hopeless loss. But she nods, and passes him by for lunch with her brother.

***

He is not unused to company. There are a lot of girls, after all. Perhaps not lately, but he's been in no mood for entertaining. Still, he has put enough work into making his home look completely ordinary.

He refuses to go a single step further. He does not tidy up, lest she get the idea he wants to impress her, or the idea that she is welcome here.

Lux steps inside from the shadow of night, a cloak pulled over her head.

"We're lucky for the season," she says. It's hardly evening at all, but the streets are dark as midnight.

"The season is what made you sick," Sylas points out. He does not offer to take her cloak, and for a moment she seems thrown by this.

He knows what manners noble girls expect. He does not intend to humor her.

After surveying the room, she takes her cloak off and hangs it by the door herself without comment. The sight of it beside his mageseekers cloak is surreal.

"Now then," she says, turning to face him. He is almost impressed by how well she has dispelled her own shyness. He is certain her flushed cheeks are from fever alone, because her eyes hold only determination.

"Now then," he repeats.

She looks at him for a long moment. "You know, you often stand like this in public," she says, abruptly. She straightens her back, puffs up her chest, and crosses her arms behind her back as if standing at attention.

He watches her, and waits for her point.

Lux pauses. Her gaze slices away. "You slouch terribly in your own home."

"Do you intend to pay for this favor in criticism?"

"It's observation. And I could never buy your favor," Lux says, and brushes past him as if his home is her own. Sylas opens his mouth to remark on the word-play -- and the accuracy -- but she interrupts him before he can. "Is it as simple as last time? A matter of holding my wrists like some kind of brute?"

Maybe it would be better to lie. To keep some secrets for himself. No matter how unimportant, an upper-hand in denying her the small details. He wouldn't mind holding her wrists again.

"Any touch will do," he says, gruffly.

Lux passes through the foyer and into the living room, where she circles around the sofa and past the coffee-table. She sits down in the armchair and looks up at him expectantly.

She looks out of place in his home. Maybe because the other girls don't usually choose that seat. They choose to sit where he can join them. It's good that she doesn't; they are on the same page about where they stand.

Lux peels off her gloves as he approaches. Her light is still spilling with irregularity, just as she had described. As he steps in front of her it bursts, throwing prismatic patterns all over his walls. A moment later it is dim again, a low pulsing that wavers like the light on the surface of the sea, seen from underneath.

Being in the presence of her magic does not feel unlike drowning.

Sylas kneels before the armchair. He does not take her arm with any gentleness, but takes care to give her no excuse to call him brutish.

"How awful," Lux says anyway, with a sniff. She pulls her arm away, as if making sure he will allow it. When he does, she hesitates before setting her hand more delicately on his. She looks at him, questioning.

He nods, refusing to be affected. "This will work."

Sylas takes Lux's affliction away from her. He makes her glow his own. He bites back his own greed, bites back the small songs of joy his heart tries to sing for the magic, magic, _magic_ shared between them. The paradoxical feeling of freedom it carries is dulled today. Vaguely, he can feel her fever in it. Staining the edges, making it blur where it has always been sharp enough to cut, even from a distance, even without touching it for himself.

What must it be like, Sylas wonders, to carry this inside you all the time. Is it as sharp inside of her, or does she at least know how to soften it for herself?

They sit in silence until her light is his alone. Her breath has become labored, her eyes unfocused. He draws away from her and closes his hand into a fist, as if to crush the light away.

"You said you would teach me," Lux says, with slight difficulty. "Was that just a promise of panic?"

It was.

"No," Sylas lies, easily. "I can teach you to control it."

She smiles, then. Weak, but warm. "I'd like that more than having my magic stolen from me." Like a petulant child she adds: "It's mine, you know."

"Is that anything to take pride in?" Sylas asks, and his own words stir up a typhoon inside of him. He knows by now to control his face, but when she looks in his eyes he is certain that she can see the storm clearly. He breaks their shared gaze first. He doesn't know why he is bothering to get himself worked up over nothing.

Lux hesitates. "I… Would like to think so."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want to hate myself."

Sylas shakes his head with impatience. "I mean why do you think so, not why would you _like_ to think so."

Lux sinks against the back of her seat. "Because I know that I am good. And I have something that I can use to _do_ good. Something that other people don't have."

Sylas scoffs, and moves to take a seat on the sofa. He props his face up with one hand, his elbow on the armrest. As he settles, Lux shifts in the armchair, angling herself to keep facing him and pulling her feet up from the floor. She curls, diagonal in the seat, and leans her head against its back. Hardly befitting for a noble girl.

"Do you doubt that I've done good?" She asks, sounding only somewhat offended.

He should doubt her. He knows better than anyone how skewed a person's _idea_ of 'good' can be. How much harm they can do for 'good.' But he looks at her and still feels the warm glow of her light inside him. He cannot imagine her doing wrong.

"No," Sylas says eventually, waving his free hand in the air dismissively. "I only question how a gift you are born with is something to take pride in. It wasn't earned by choice or effort. Just given to you."

He isn't sure what he expects from her. Indignation, perhaps.

Instead, Lux considers his words. "I suppose so. But I do think that having persevered in this kingdom was an effort. And to use my magic for good was a choice. I can take pride in those. I can take pride in what I've done _because_ of the gifts given to me, and what I've done _with_ them, even without taking pride in having received the gifts themselves."

Her magic is warm, and bright, and sharp. It stabs at him from the inside, white-hot blades of guilt. Sylas does not think of what he uses his magic for. Desperately, he does not think of it.

He is silent, but as if reading his mind, she asks softly, "Are you proud of what you do with your gift?"

Sylas narrows his eyes at her, pushing back down the low simmer of rage. "I have persevered in this kingdom," he repeats back to her. The lie comes easily: "I am proud to have kept myself alive."

The lack of judgment on her face does not soothe him, nor does the compassion he can see written in her eyes.

Desperate to change the subject, he says, "You're going to be weak. Your magic will return naturally in about two or three days. Enough to recover from your fever. It should return gradually, but be prepared. You've terrible control even on a good day."

Lux frowns. "But you'll teach me better control."

"There's nothing to teach you when you have no magic _to_ control."

"Aren't there… Exercises I might learn tonight? To practice, for later."

Sylas arches an eyebrow at her. It shouldn't be a surprise that she hasn't read any books on magic like he has. Confiscation has its perks. Needing to know what to be prepared for, what the 'enemy' might know has served him well.

"It was just a thought," she mutters, shamed by his silence. She rises to her feet much too quickly and announces: "Fine then. I'll be out of your hair for the time being and return for my lessons another day."

Her legs go out from under her at the first step she takes -- Sylas moves fast enough to catch her. Her body is lighter than he had imagined it.

She stills in his arms for a moment, blinking like she is slowly processing that she hadn't crashed to the floor.

"I see," Lux says, sounding dazed, with one hand gingerly resting on his arm. "The loss of my magic took a greater toll than I had realized."

"It's that you're ill," Sylas grumbles, letting go of her. His hands hover just off her shoulders. Too easily, he can imagine her falling into the coffee table and splitting her head open. He doesn't want to deal with a dead Crownguard in his home. A living one is pain, enough. She has him on edge, skin prickling with nerves.

She doesn't argue the obvious lie. She takes slow, deep breaths, and her body sways so far to one side that her shoulder brushes against his palm once more.

"Sit," Sylas says, exasperated.

Obediently, she drops back down into the armchair. She is still fighting off shallow breaths, and brings a hand to her chest as if to help regulate herself.

His hands drop to his sides, flexing with discomfort. This was a very bad idea, Sylas realizes, belatedly.

But he knows that she needed this. He wonders if the extravagant homes of nobles are as white as the castle, as white as the stone steps. Perfect for prismatic reflections on the walls and terrible for keeping secrets.

Lux's eyes flutter shut, her long eyelashes dusting her cheeks. He watches the shape of her whole body as she breathes. The curve of her shoulders; her chest expanding on inhale, then relaxing with the drawn out exhale.

"Your home is very plain," Lux eventually says. She drapes herself over one of the armrests like a nesting cat. "As if no one really lives here at all."

His lips purse in annoyance. "I'll not accept this as payment, I've told you."

She laughs. Inhales, exhales. "No, it's… It's _smart_. It's just very sad, that's all."

"Shall I come to your home to give my impression of it?" He asks, flatly.

"I'm a gracious host, I'll have you know. And a wonderful cook, at that."

"That isn't what I've heard."

Her eyes open, drifting up to him lazily, but with a clarity of suspicion.

"What do you know of my cooking?"

"We're beyond pretenses," Sylas says, with a roll of his eyes. "I've seen you on the steps too frequently not to know that it's for lunch with your brother. And I've overheard his words enough to know that 'wonderful' has not been among them."

She is quiet, looking at him as if mystified by this honesty. Sylas cannot fathom, after all, that it would be the truth itself that surprises her. Only that he had said it.

He has been hyper-aware of her presence in the world for so long that denying it seems futile. With magic like hers, it's only natural.

Belatedly, her face goes red, and Sylas does not have a word for the emotion that jolts up his spine. It is not quite alarm and it is not quite anger, but it fills his chest with an uncomfortable heat.

Lux ducks her head into her crossed arms as if to hide her blush. Her voice is muffled when she mumbles, "I've made great improvements. You'll see."

It strikes him, suddenly, how open she is. As if they are old friends, accustomed to bickering. It makes him want to replay every thoughtless thing they have said to one another today. He suddenly feels like a stranger to himself, angry and hyper-critical of his own behavior. Of the ease of flirting with ruin.

Lux murmurs, "You know, I…"

"You?" Sylas echoes, still distracted.

But she does not reply. She is quiet for so long, with her eyes closed, that Sylas begins to think she has fallen asleep. Until her voice drifts, changing topics now, "You are a terrible host. You should at least offer me a cup of tea. Something to warm me from the cold."

"You've been inside long enough to have warmed up, by now."

Lux scoffs. "Without even a fire in the fireplace? You consider this warmth? I'm unwell, you know."

Flatly, Sylas says, "Yet I'm gracious enough to allow your affliction in my home."

"And when it's so contagious, too," Lux drawls, amused.

The feeling from a moment ago returns. The acute awareness of their ease of speech, stealing the comfort out from under him the moment he perceives it. Making him realize how thoroughly he's failed to keep from humoring her.

His home is far from a sanctuary. Not for him and certainly not for her.

"How long do you intend to stay?" He asks, trying to return himself to safety.

She hums, unbothered by the slight shift in his demeanor. "Until I'm able to leave without collapsing. As I'm sure is ideal for the both of us."

Sylas sits down on the sofa once more. He considers making her tea -- something to help her regain her energy so that she'll leave. Yet even with that motivation, he doesn't like the array of other messages she might take from it.

Undeterred by his hurry to be rid of her, Lux dozes in the armchair.

Not for long; only long enough that Sylas is certain she is really asleep this time. Long enough for him to grow impatient for her departure, and long enough for him to set aside this impatience in favor of a book.

Long enough to read three and a half chapters -- and long enough for him to feel a wave of impatience when she wakes, for the interruption it brings to his reading.

She stretches her arms and stands up with care. Her footsteps are still unsteady as they move towards the door. They hover there together after she has pulled her cloak over her shoulders, and both pretend that she does not need more rest, that she should not be walking back out into the cold.

Still visibly dazed from her nap, Lux blinks at Sylas with bleary eyes as he pulls the hood of her cloak up over her head. He doesn't know why he does it.

In the quiet, she reaches a tentative hand out towards him. He does not like the expression of sympathy on her face, and flinches away from her at the brush of fingertips against his arm.

Her gaze drops down; she takes a step back, clumsily knocking her back against the door. Her disappointment is absurd, Sylas thinks. Frustration pin-pricks his skin like centralized fires, and a part of him -- most of him -- wants nothing more than to shove her out the door.

He has made too many mistakes today. He knows now that she is a girl who makes endless mistakes, but he hadn't realized he would, too.

"Don't ask this of me again."

Beneath the shadow of her hood, her brow furrows.

"No," she agrees, and reminds him: "You said you would teach me so that I don't need this."

He looks away. He should tell her he has changed his mind, that she is not worth the risk. He takes too long to say anything, which conveys it well enough.

"I see," Lux murmurs.

He doesn't know what he expects. An argument, a word of complaint, another saccharine attempt to reach out and touch him -- like she wants to assure him she is willing to. Even when his skin is no different than his Graymark, than the petricite walls that trap them. He is far too aware of his Graymark, heavy in the pocket of his jacket that hangs beside an open hook.

Lux opens the front door and takes her leave in silence. As she steps into the dark, the wind seems to carry her away from him. She vanishes in the cold night, a ghostly swirl of white cloaks.

***

The ribbon tightens around his heart, even when he does not see her for weeks. It's unbearable. It's torture, and Sylas seethes that she has done this to him so obliviously. She has done what he asked, and still his mind won't stop throwing her into the forefront of his thoughts.

 _Witch_ , he thinks, but is too aware of his own beliefs for it to hold the malice he'd like it to. Too aware that for however poorly-kept her secrets may be, she still isn't the real threat. Just the one who could invite it.

He has never been so conscious of the passage of time. Days drag by slowly, each the same as the one before it. He does not allow himself to think anything other than this: she must be keeping her secrets as well as she keeps her distance. Even if she _were_ caught, and the whole ordeal kept quiet from the public, he is certain that _he_ , at least, would hear something.

Besides, if the other seekers knew of mages to apprehend so close to home, they certainly wouldn't send him so far from the capitol.

They are nearly to Dawnhold when they reach the small farm-house, and Sylas thinks it would have been quicker to travel by ship instead of horseback. He is cold and tired. The snow has not started yet, but it's rained half their journey.

At least today the skies are blessedly dry. Cloudy and grey -- too blinding to look up at with the sun spreading across thin clouds. But dry.

"Always farms," Mari says. She has taken off her mask for the hundredth time this journey, and she unbraids and braids her hair as she walks.

"Maybe it's to poison us," Luca says, conspiratorially.

Mari snorts. "Then why don't we ever _get_ poisoned, Stupid?

Luca frowns at this. Sylas looks at him sidelong, watching the gears spin very slowly inside the young man's head. Thinking doesn't appear to get him anywhere. "Well, they'd get caught that much faster if they gave into their nature. It's a sign of our success that we always stop them before it comes to that. Now put your mask back on, we're almost there."

"It snags in my hair," Mari grouses, but obediently slips her mask back on and flicks her braid over her shoulder.

They are both new, and under Sylas's charge for their first venture out from the capital. Their first hunt.

Sylas wants to tell them: It's because there is so much that magic can do on a farm that nearly any kind of magic is useful. It's because the mages we bother to hunt down come from poverty, and this is the safest way to drag themselves out of it. It's because of the safety in isolation, and because of the way that magic is meant to nurture. To nurture the earth to nurture the food to nurture the people. It is because a farm is a way to provide for others and for yourself, and safe away from the people your work cares for. You serve those who would kill you.

Instead he says, warningly: "Both of you."

Both their spines straighten, but they fall just as quickly back into their gossip.

"Suppose they'll fight us?" asks Luca.

"Not to worry," Mari chirps. "I've been practicing swords much more diligently than you have. I'll protect you."

Luca lets out an indignant sound. "That was _not_ my concern, and we _both_ know I'm the better swordsman. What I mean to say is, who knows what magic artifacts they may have? How do we know that _any_ swordsman can compete?"

Sylas clears his throat, and they both go silent.

"You have your Graymarks to hold your own against magic, _if_ they fight back at all."

Both look relieved. Sylas cannot help but wonder: doesn't this alarm you? That most of our captives do not even fight back against us? That they go quietly into chains and cells and disappear from the world, all because they never wanted to hurt anyone to begin with? That those we fear are peaceful enough to give up their freedom without fight, more often than not?

It infuriates him. The anger is volcanic, and it pours unrelentingly over the two young adults behind him. Molten and moving, it flows back to himself. To Demacia and its king. To Lux. To the mages he has captured and the mages he may yet capture.

It doesn't matter, in the end, who he is angry with. It's an anger that tells him: just run. Your home is not your home, and it would be nothing to leave it behind. It's an anger that festers inside him without outlet, without reprieve, without action. It's an anger that slowly dies, dragging his soul down with it.

Sylas leads the way past rows and rows of barren land, drawing closer to the small home ahead, like a dollhouse on the horizon. His eyes scan over the plots of dirt, relieved that they were smart enough not to grow anything in the winter. They know when to hide their power. This bodes well.

He wills them to have fled. To have realized that there were whispers traveling. To have left the home they have and the life they've built, because starting over with nothing is better than having it robbed from you anew each day of your life.

But they are no more willing to leave their home behind than he is. He can feel the magic getting closer. It's a delicate thing. Hard to grasp, like sand that spills from the palm. Elemental magic, probably, but he can't place which.

The other two mageseekers are obediently quiet as they near the house, but with each step, Sylas's hopes fall further.

He climbs the steps to the front door and feels the magic woven into the wood. He knocks on the door and feels it ebb. Like flowers that turn towards the sun, the magic calls out to him like a familiar friend.

A young girl answers the door. Lux's age, Sylas guesses. Maybe twenty. Maybe younger. She has long black hair, tied up in a ponytail, and her green eyes settle on him with apprehension.

Luca and Mari hold up their Graymarks, as if the masks weren't identification enough.

"Can I help you…?"

Sylas pushes past her, stepping inside her home. His arm brushes hers, and in an instant he knows the shape of her magic. Fire. He pulls as much as he can in the moment, but doesn't let himself linger. He only gets one moment as she staggers and he steadies her with one hand.

Luca and Mari follow him inside, and Sylas considers using her fire to kill them. He could spin a tale and return home alone, alive by the skin of his teeth. He plays his part. He does his job. He could get away with a failed mission, just this once.

But a stain on his record like that wouldn't go away. Sylas knows that he could raise a red flag once, but that flag would never go back down. It's playing your trump card too early. It's putting yourself under a microscope. And for what?

One girl?

"You live alone?" he asks.

"In the winter," the woman says, cautious. She has stepped aside to let him pace through her house, but she watches him with a furrowed brow. He holds inside him the smallest ember of her magic, and he knows that she feels its absence. Feels the slight weakness left behind by its theft.

Mari hums, making far too much of a show of herself as she skims a bookshelf. "But not the rest of the time?"

"We have family in Dawnhold. The fishing is good even in the winter, so -- the rest of us travel there when the weather is too cold for crops."

"Why don't you join them?" Luca asks. Mari's polar opposite, he looks uncomfortable to be intruding, and stands up straight at Sylas's side.

"Someone has to look after the house," she says. "Make sure the pipes don't freeze and keep it occupied to avoid unwanted guests."

"Unwanted guests," Mari repeats.

"Raccoons, mostly," the woman says, somewhat flatly. Her eyes drift away when Sylas looks at them too long. "But I can imagine there might be nomads who would appreciate an empty home. And that's - no judgement on that, of course. But this home _is_ occupied."

"What's your name?" Sylas asks.

There is a beat of silence just a moment too long before she says: "Sophie. Mintruse. Sophie Mintruse."

He steals a glance to Mari, relieved at her curt nod of acceptance.

A well-trained mageseeker should ask how many in her family. Should ask their names. When they left and when they will return.

"And how are you getting by alone, Sophie?" Sylas asks.

"Well enough."

"Good. Weather like this might bring you to fever if you aren't careful. Now. You know why we're here."

Sophie looks from him to Luca to Mari and back. She shakes her head. "I'm afraid I don't. I… Know _what_ you are. The mageseekers. But there are no mages here. None in my family, or anywhere nearby."

Mari snaps a book shut, presumably for dramatic effect. "Or did they flee, knowing we were coming?"

Sylas resists the urge to roll his eyes at her, but no matter how juvenile, the tactic still works on Sophie. She tenses, shoulders hunching inward.

"But why would I stay behind? Wouldn't it make more sense to run with them?" Sophie asks, her voice taking an edge.

"Where did the rumors spark from, if not from truth?" Sylas asks. Sophie flinches, and when she steps back she bumps into the edge of a table. Sylas catches her by the arm.

He does not pull the magic from her so quickly, this time. He knows too well the effect that can have on a person. Instead it's like sand through an hourglass, slowly trickling from her to him for as long as the moment will allow.

Her footing wavers a second time as he lets go.

She opens her mouth. Looks once more to Luca and Mari. Closes her mouth.

"If you're in good health," Sylas says, his voice as firm and unforgiving as it can be. "There's no reason for you to stay behind."

"It's not -- I told you, it's because someone needs to look after the house."

This time he presses. "How many others are in your family? I would picture someone older to be left in charge."

"It's just… My mother and father and my siblings and I."

"How many siblings?" Luca asks.

Sophie hesitates. "Two older brothers and two younger sisters."

"But the middle child was left behind?" Mari asks, voice laced too thickly with suspicion.

"My -- my sisters are close with their cousins. And my brothers are both skilled at fishing. Being the middle child… Means to be left with the unfavored things."

"Well," Mari says. "She isn't wrong about that. My sisters--"

"--Mari," Luca interrupts, sternly. For as much as he gossips on the road, he takes his work seriously.

This time when Sylas touches Sophie, it is with a feigned air of comfort. He is sure this is transparent, and that his hand on her shoulder comes across as a thinly veiled threat. All the better.

"Don't--" she begins, breath hitching.

"--You look unwell," Sylas says.

She is trembling. Afraid, and growing weaker for each moment that his hand stays on her shoulder. Each second that he slowly, slowly drags her magic away from her. He squeezes until she flinches, pressing the threat and narrowing his eyes.

" _Nervous?_ "

She wants to ask him what he is doing. He's glad that she does not.

She does not answer at all, and eventually Luca says, "If she won't admit to being a mage, we prove it through trial. Word wouldn't have traveled to the capital for no reason."

Sylas glances to Mari, surprised by her silence.

Mari meets his eyes, then quickly looks away. Her gaze lands on Luca, until the precise moment that he returns it, and then she tips her head back to squint up at the ceiling. "She seems weak. For a farm girl. She's stumbled twice now, and her face is pale. She may be ill, after all."

Luca frowns. "Mages aren't immune to illness. It means nothing."

"I'm just saying," Mari says, breezily.

Sophie flinches again, and Sylas grips her shoulder hard enough that he is sure it will leave a bruise. He takes one last surge of her magic. It isn't difficult to take and hold inside himself; fire doesn't burn as hot as the light had.

He lets go. Watches Sophie reach for the table's edge to balance herself, breath coming short.

He steps back, letting Luca take the lead. Luca looks at Sylas over his shoulder, and Sylas gives the younger man a nod. "You're right. This isn't a wellness check. Go on, then."

***

When it comes time to set up camp, there is a part of Sylas that wants to use the stolen magic to light the fire. It would certainly be easier than doing it by hand.

The other two are no help at all. They are sitting beside the pit he has made, munching their rations and gossiping as casually as before.

"I could tell right away, you know," Mari says. She is braiding her hair again, and Luca watches her hands closely.

"Of course you could," he mutters, and rolls his eyes. "When you were the one getting so suspicious on her."

"Intimidation is a powerful tool," Sylas says. The fire sparks to life by his hands. Past it, Mari preens.

"It's a wasted tool if it's not used correctly," Luca mutters. "She was so afraid that she failed to just tell us she was ill. She was unsteady on her feet and nearly fainted."

"There's no reason to be nervous of the mageseekers if you have nothing to hide," Mari says. She sounds too pleased for a false lead, but perhaps this is relief at the freedom from further responsibility. The easiest job is one that does not need doing. Even those passionate about their work would be relieved at avoiding potential danger.

Luca hesitates, then looks to Sylas. "Is it always so hard to tell? I admit that I mistook her nerves for guilt too, but… I used the Graymark myself, just as I was trained to. She really was clean."

"Even the innocent can look guilty at times," Sylas says. The words taste like ash in his mouth. "That's why our job is necessary. To find out the _truth_. Whether by proving the rumors wrong, or by uncovering a hidden threat. We exist to keep the people safe. "

This seems to comfort Luca, though it was not an answer. Even Mari stares into the fire, and nods with a renewed determination.

***

For each person he can protect, there are dozens he cannot. He is not under any delusions that his actions on that farm have made him a saint. So he let one girl go without bribery or favor. He had captured four from another farm before the gala. This does not tip the scales.

If there is an afterlife, he is certain that his will be more miserable than even this life. Whichever side of this war the goddesses favor, he has still been in the wrong.

Weeks later, long-since home beyond the walls, he is still full of such a white-hot frustration that he thinks he could breathe fire.

He is taking risks. Stupid, _illogical,_ risks. Luca and Mari are new to this work, and this means that they will be quick to answer the questions of others. Quick to report oddities and curiosities. It means that for as unlikely to be suspicious of him as they are, they will have no sense of secrecy. He did not raise a red flag in stealing away one girl's magic before she could be tested for it -- but it is _a_ flag none-the-less, raised above his peers.

Anything other than executing his job flawlessly is something that can be traced back to him.

He cannot keep making terrible impulse decisions because of some girl.

Least of all some girl who he does not intend to see, does not want to see, _will_ not see. He knows too well how tempting it is to ideate her as an angel. A kindred spirit, compassionate and accepting.

Just because she is beautiful and kind, this does not make her salvation. He knows better than to be swayed by his own desperate delusions. She is just a spoiled girl who is kind because she is not in a position that requires cruelty.

There is a tap on his shoulder.

Sylas snaps shut a book that he had not even remotely been reading, and turns his head to look down.

Mari holds her lunchbox to her chest, and for a long moment does not say anything at all. She just stares at him, like she is trying to read beneath the surface. He is tired of this -- of girls who think they see through him.

"Yes?" He eventually prompts, impatient.

"I just…" Mari pauses to look around them, making sure the room is empty. They are alone, but she keeps her voice low. "Wanted you to know that I won't say anything."

His blood runs cold; all the fury inside him dissipates for a split second of dread.

"I can tell, you know? Not with the trials but by looking at someone's face. My--I know people who are like you."

Sylas looks at her through narrowed eyes. He believes what she says, clumsily as she says it. There isn't a trace of magic coming from her.

"You're saying something right now," Sylas says, tone as hard as the ice in his veins. He is not interested in alliances, he is not interested in shared secrets. "To even make the promise is to break it. Don't make that mistake again."

She is remarkably unafraid of him, for a girl so tempting to hit upside the head. She purses her lips for a moment. "But I was wondering if you do this often. If we can… Keep protecting--"

"--Stop," he demands. He has not felt so helpless in a very long time. He thinks back to the panic on Lux's face when he had stolen her magic and there is something inside of him that vaguely resembles guilt. Of course he would get his comeuppance from another little girl who is too brave and too stupid.

"It's why I joined," Mari tries again, but this time snaps her mouth shut when he shoots her a glare.

"No," he says. He shoves the book into her arms, and watches as she fumbles to hold it beside her lunchbox. "I don't do anything but my job, and no, you can't protect anyone. Now be quiet. Know your place."

"You said we exist to protect people," Mari protests.

Sylas covers her mouth with one hand. Mari's eyes go wide, and with a book in one hand and her lunch in the other, she flusters silently in place, unsure of what to do.

"I lied."

Mari makes a muffled sound of protest. He feels her breath hot on his palm.

"We only protect ourselves."

She is not a threatening figure, with her round cheeks and childish braids. But he recognizes the fury in her silent glare, familiar as his own hatred.

***

There has not been a girl in a _very_ long time.

This is mostly on purpose.

True to her word, Mari must not have said anything. If Luca has, it has not done any harm that Sylas has caught wind of. He does not spend much time with the newer mageseekers, though, and for this he is grateful. No more stupid girls with too-high hopes.

He feels exhausted each time he is made to socialize in any capacity, though. Even the others who have been here longer than him are draining. A part of him cannot fathom that he has very nearly risked having girlfriends in the past when now the thought of any company at all in his home makes his skin itch.

Being _alone_ in his home is no better. He longs for the days of being numb to the cycles he lives in. Days of dirt in his heart piled higher and higher. Now, in the quiet, he feels as if he is on the edge of something dangerous. He feels brittle, his mind too busy for his own good, his heart too bare even to himself.

There are lights in the streets. Wreaths and baubles and crimson ribbons from one building to the next. To light the darkest nights of winter, that seem to begin earlier and earlier each day. To bring back the color, stolen by fog and snowfall.

The beautiful things of Demacia hollow out his chest, but at least it's a reprieve from the dizzying anger. This kingdom, so lavished with resources, so used to the luxury of pretty things for the sake of prettiness, is a home with dark shadows. But under the light, for a moment, he can almost find it lovely.

Sylas stares into the tailor's shop window, and considers buying a new duvet.

Before he makes up his mind, he hears laughter. That ribbon pulls, as if it yanks his head up to look for the source without his permission -- just as Lux comes spilling out the door with two other girls nearly on top of her back.

"Pretty as it is, it's not as _practical,_ " Lux is saying, tipping forward so far that Sylas almost fears she will fall.

"Oh, and what does practicality matter?" Her friend demands. She snatches the headband from Lux's hair before pushing off from her. " _Pretty_ is all that matters."

Lux stumbles, but the third girl catches her with a scolding, " _Belle_."

Belle holds the stolen headband behind her back, twirling her way in front of the other two before facing them defiantly. "I say this only out of love! If Lux truly only cared for pragmatism, she would tie her hair up or braid it. She likes the look of a headband, so why not something _even_ prettier?"

"On special occasions, perhaps?" Lux offers, noncommittal. She sounds tired, but there is a smile tugging at her lips.

"Is _every_ day not a special occasion, Vivia?" Belle asks, beginning to walk backwards.

Vivia sniffs, and as if they are not all three wearing the expensive clothes of nobles, says, "Perhaps for a girl with aspirations towards royalty, but not to a _plain_ girl such as myself!"

There is a moment of silence between the three of them before they each burst into laughter. Lux's eyes scrunch up when she laughs, and she lightly elbows Vivia beside her.

"I have no aspirations of the--" Lux begins, but abruptly stops when her eyes land on Sylas. For an imperceptible moment, she freezes -- before Belle backs up into him.

Sylas steadies Belle by her shoulders, then lets go quickly. His hand drops down to slip the headband from her grip, unnoticed in her hurry to step back away from him. She gives a deep bow, face flushing.

"Apologies, sir," Belle says, her tone suddenly softer for appearances. More delicate, like she had not just mocked and shoved and spun in the street.

"None needed."

Vivia whispers to Lux, still frozen in place, "Are you alright?"

Lux nods mutely, her eyes not leaving Sylas's.

Vivia follows Lux's gaze, brow furrowed.

Sylas steps forward, brushing past Belle to stand before Lux. He waits for her to back away from him, but she does not. Perhaps just for appearances.

"Mageseeker," she says, with a small bow of her head and a smile that almost convinces him.

"Miss Crownguard," he returns. She winces, but he is sure it goes unnoticed for the way both her friends let out high-pitched gasps as he sets her headband back on her head.

She raises an eyebrow at him, unimpressed with the chivalrous play-acting, then quickly removes the headband once more to fix it herself. "It serves no purpose to put it on like that."

Belle interjects herself between them, as if materializing from nowhere. "But you must agree, Mageseeker, that a pretty ribbon would suit her just as well? Because it isn't just about functionality!"

Even Vivia, seemingly the more demure of Lux's friends, steps in from the other side: "I've been insisting on white, but Belle thinks it better to stick with blue!"

Sylas stares at the three girls before him and immediately understands the vague exhaustion in Lux's eyes. He plays along, but does not hide his indifference. "The only one qualified to answer that is Miss Crownguard herself."

"And how do you _know '_ Miss Crownguard'?" Vivia asks, as if the prior line of questioning had only been a ruse.

"My uncle is the Head Mageseeker," Lux reminds them, sounding tired.

"Then do you know all the good looking mageseekers?" Belle asks.

"Um," says Lux.

" _Belle,_ " Vivia snaps. She gives Sylas an apologetic look. "I'm so sorry, we've had a long day of gossip."

Sylas shakes his head curtly, dismissing the apology. He stands up straight with his arms behind his back.

He is trying to decide whether it would sound more diplomatic to assure them that they've every right to gossip or that being called good looking hardly merits an apology. All that matters is which of the two would help him to escape their company quickest.

Before he settles on one or the other, Belle is interjecting once more. "So have you sought any recently?" At his visible pause, she presses, " _Mages_ , I mean."

"It's probably something to be grateful for," Sylas muses, "But of late we've only been chasing false rumors."

Belle looks disappointed; Vivia looks relieved.

Lux, he cannot read. She is watching him with a curiosity, as if intent on making sense of this. As if it is a much more complicated affair than it is.

"I've heard there's a memory witch in the woods," Vivia says, as if hoping he will confirm or deny this.

"Perhaps," Sylas says. "But if I were you, I would worry more about the witches _within_ our walls."

Belle gasps loudly, enthralled with the idea. Vivia shrinks back.

Lux glares. "Don't let him scare you." She reaches down as if about to hold Vivia's hand, but hesitates, and a moment later crosses her arms over her chest instead. "He's just being a bully."

"Is that what you think of me?"

Against her own defiant frown, her cheeks pink.

Belle cannot seem to make up her mind between staring agape at Sylas or Lux, and so she rapidly looks back and forth between them.

"I've just remembered that I forgot to make a very important purchase!" Belle announces, loudly. "Vivia, you must help me!"

Vivia only manages a startled, "What? But--" before Belle has grabbed her wrist, yanking her past Lux and hurriedly back inside the shop. Sylas thinks it would be impossible to be any more obvious, until he sees them through the window, blatantly staring from behind a pile of folded duvets.

Lux sizes him up in the uncomfortable silence.

He is struck by the cold, suddenly aware of it in the early-evening dark. The glow of winter-lights keeps Lux's face looking warm, even as her expression remains wary.

"I'll not apologize for my friends, if that's what you're expecting," she eventually says.

"I didn't ask you to."

"But you're being judgmental. I can tell."

"I haven't said anything of the sort."

"You don't _need_ to, I can _tell_."

The silence stretches again, tense. Lux shifts her weight, and Sylas reminds himself that there is no reason for _him_ to be as discomfited as she is. His skin prickles. Her magic is a perpetual thrum beneath everything, like a song being hummed in the back of his mind. It's distracting, and impossible to shake off.

Lux asks him, quietly, "Was it really a false rumor?"

"Yes," Sylas lies, without hesitation.

Lux looks disappointed, and he is struck with relief that she cannot truly see through him. She hesitates. He watches her throat as she swallows. Watches the way she pulls her bottom lip between her teeth for a contemplative moment.

"I know that you said not to ask," she begins, and pauses as if expecting an interruption. When none comes, she carries on: "But… I had hoped we might make another trade?"

"Why?"

Her gaze drops to her feet. "My control is still poor. And with the season, my family is spending more time at home, together. More time visiting. Auntie and uncle often come to visit for dinner, and it's… Nerve-wracking."

"What I do isn't permanent."

"I know. But if I could come visit, perhaps the night before a family dinner..."

Sylas looks at her. At the navy blue gloves she is wearing, dark enough to hide an errant glow. He sighs, irritated at himself more than her. "Fine."

For however weak it is, her smile surprises him.

***

He is tired of thinking himself in circles over it. He is tired of the cycles of exhaustion, of rage, of acceptance. He spins through each stage again and again, and every loop brings him new fears of being found out.

Sometimes the fear is of Lux being found out.

This is an irritation all of its own.

He already knows he is not a good man. Not the type to worry about others above himself. To waver for a pretty girl, he assures himself, does not mean anything. To care only about your own loved ones is not a true kindness. It is not even a full step beyond caring only for yourself.

 _Loved ones_?

No. He hardly knows the girl. They speak with an ease that disquiets him, but months of unspoken awareness of one another is not the same as having a relationship. He does not _want_ any such thing.

"So you wear glasses," Lux observes, by way of greeting. She closes the door to his home behind her, and quickly hangs her damp cloak beside his.

"For reading," Sylas says, aggressively refusing to be out of his element. He takes them off.

"They look nice," she says easily. It should be no surprise that she is more energetic today than when she had been feverish. She crosses his living room, and with a dramatic, "brr," begins fiddling with the fireplace.

"Making yourself right at home, I see," Sylas says, unkindly.

"I've no manners to spare for a bully," Lux counters. When she has finished setting the firewood and kindling, she looks at him over her shoulder. "Anyway, look at this."

What she lacks in the ability to suppress she makes up for in ability to use. He feels her magic flare, the light's temperature spiking from her palms. In a burst as sudden as lightning, the fire is lit, though a glow remains on her hands like a stain.

"Your magic isn't fire," Sylas says, trying to keep surprise from his voice.

She hums. "I feel that they're connected."

Sylas rubs at his brow as if to dispel a headache. "It takes more than a feeling."

"I wouldn't know," she says, far too brightly. "I've no teacher to learn from."

"If you are trying to impress your way to lessons--"

"--Of course not," Lux interrupts. She tilts her head at him and asks, curiously, "Are you impressed?"

Sylas frowns. "Sit down."

Her lips curl into a smile as Lux rises, moving to the armchair before collapsing into it.

In the quiet, she holds out her hand, and in the quiet he kneels down to take it. There is no excuse of illness to cover her if she stumbles home weak, and so he is careful not to draw too much too quickly. Careful to hold her hand for a long moment, both of them small and quiet in his house.

Her hand is small, with slender fingers and polished nails. Her skin is soft against his, though her touch is not tentative anymore.

Lux murmurs, "Can I ask why you changed your mind? About lessons."

"I've no desire to put myself at risk for a girl who could buy her way out of this problem. If you're caught, your family name and money will keep you safe. I have no such luxury."

"I still have a lot to fear," Lux says, "But I understand that you do, too. We're more alike than we are different."

He scoffs, but she doesn't seem to mind it. Her fingers trace his palm.

With both the fireplace and her magic, Sylas feels uncomfortably warm.

"I don't want you getting the idea that we're the same," Sylas says. "I am not your confidante, and I am not here to provide you with a sense of comfort."

"I know better than to seek it from you," Lux says, lacking any malice. More gently, she asks, "But don't you seek those things, too?"

"I know better."

"Not from me," Lux clarifies belatedly, and Sylas is not so distracted by the slight tilt of her head that he misses her fingers exploring up to his wrist. Her touch is so light that it almost tickles. "But don't you want… I don't know. Some kind of… External sense of safety, that exists outside of yourself? A safe haven."

With the hand that is not holding hers, Sylas covers her wandering hand. He moves it back down to his palm, and repeats: "I know better."

She stares down at their hands. At an unspoken rejection of an unspoken question. He is relieved that she is used to walls; that she takes it gracefully and holds his hand in stillness. This kingdom was built on the dream of a safe haven, and its failure to create one has not inspired hope in him enough to think it possible.

A moment passes. When relief at Lux's obedience has almost settled in him, she says: "If you teach me to control it, you'll have no need to put yourself in danger for my sake anymore."

A dark storm ignites in his chest. He tries to think of it as something far, far away on the horizon. Something that won't reach his voice or face -- something that only he can see.

Both her hands are holding his; he doesn't know how long they have been.

"Please," Lux whispers.

Sylas closes his eyes.

"Fine."

***

She stumbles on the way to the door, but after a deep breath, seems to have steadied herself.

"It feels… Hollow," she says conversationally, taking her cloak down. She makes a face at its lingering dampness, but pulls it over her shoulders anyway. "Like I'm missing a part of myself. It makes me wonder how people with no magic of their own get by. If they always feel so empty, like they're missing something that we're all supposed to have."

"Every magic I've touched has felt different," Sylas says, leaning against the wall. "It's shaped itself around its user. I don't believe it's something that's meant to be common."

"Then because I am an incomplete person, my magic tried to fill what I lack," Lux says lightly, as if this is not a deeply tragic way to think of herself. Even Sylas winces. She doesn't seem to notice and adds, "Interesting. Then does it make you feel… Overfull?"

"Somewhat," Sylas admits.

Lux fixes her hair before pulling up her hood. She toys with the clasp of her cloak. Taps her boots on the floor. She is stalling to keep talking, and he allows it to continue without comment.

"How does it compare to other magic?" She asks.

After a moment's consideration, he answers, "Your magic spreads. It leaves no room for shadows, and it can be painful in its intensity. But it reshapes."

She seems mystified by the idea. "And other magic?"

"More solid, perhaps. Like the difference between holding it in my palm and feeling it flow through my body. The difference between holding sand and water."

"I'm kind of jealous," Lux says. She is leaning against the door, now, mimicking his body-language as if he is not here waiting for her to leave. "I'll only ever feel my own magic."

A wave of discomfort passes through him, and Sylas crosses his arms over his chest. "Would you be jealous of petricite?"

"Don't twist it into a different statement than it is. Petricite has its own hardships."

He blinks. "What?"

Lux looks away. "Nothing. I just mean to say that -- if I believe that magic is not inherently good or bad, then I don't believe something with the power to stifle it is inherently good or bad, either. From walls to castles to statues to you."

The fire in the fireplace crackles. Lux clears her throat.

This time, unthinking, she reaches out and pats his arm as if to smooth over the strange moment. "Alright, then. I've procrastinated returning home as long as I dare. Please hold me in your prayers."

Sylas snorts. "You sound like a soldier marching off to war."

"I am spending time with my family," Lux says, gravely. "So that is precisely the situation."

It's raining when she leaves his home, this time. Down the street, completely soaked already, she stops to look back and wave good-bye one last time. It's only then that Sylas realizes he had been standing in the open doorway, watching her leave.

***

She is wearing a blue ribbon in her hair. Wrapped like a headband, with a bow at the base of her neck. She won't stop fiddling with it using her free hand, though she has not said a word to draw attention.

She has been obedient through her magic lessons. A good student and a fast learner -- but not fast enough to turn away their trade.

With her hand in his, she huffs, "And _then_ , my father had the audacity to _laugh_."

Sylas glances down. Her magic is pulsing with her mood, sparking with irritation inside him and between them. It sets him on edge, but he pushes the feeling down. "In disbelief, surely."

"He thinks my protests are of embarrassment! He thinks I am being _shy_."

"Little does he know, you welcome yourself into a man's home each week."

He speaks without thinking. It takes a beat of silence for him to process what he's said -- when he looks up, Lux's whole face has gone red.

Sylas watches the curve of her throat as she tips her head back and groans. "Don't ignore the context of this for an inappropriate joke! I'm already in trouble enough for missing an arranged meeting."

His hand twitches.

"Luxanna," he says, very slowly. "Did you miss a meeting with the prince for--"

"--It's not like that," Lux interrupts, still red-faced. "It's not. It's _not_. I've taken to heart what -- what you..."

There is an uncomfortable silence, before Sylas says, unconvinced, "Alright."

He allows the subject to drop.

***

He doesn't realize the time until long after Lux should have left. From his seat on the sofa, he looks at her.

She has moved to sit by the fireplace, now only embers. Her eyes are closed, having started as part of a visualization exercise he has been teaching her and now, he is beginning to suspect, a sign of her exhaustion.

"You should go," he says.

"Mm," Lux agrees.

"It isn't a suggestion," Sylas says, flatly. "Leave my home or I'll call law enforcement."

"You _are_ law enforcement," Lux says, easily. But she stands. Instead of heading for the door, she comes to stand before him on the sofa, looking down as if she relishes the chance to be the taller of the two. "And even if you weren't, you wouldn't."

The ease of this churns his stomach. Each week, she comes into his home, and each week, he tells himself not to get comfortable. Each week, he thinks how much he hates her, and thinks of how hollow this home is. He thinks of how impossible these things are to ever change.

Each week, she changes them.

Her finger twirls the loose end of the ribbon in her hair, and she looks at him expectantly.

Sylas sighs. "Black might look nice," he concedes, making it clear that the words are dragged through oceans of indifference.

Lux feigns obliviousness. "Hm?"

He doesn't play along any further. He stands up, forcing her to take a step back to make room for him. Their bodies are still dangerously close; her chest presses against his as she inhales.

Sylas places his hands gently on her shoulders.

He watches her gaze dart from his eyes to his mouth; watches her wet her lips subconsciously. He feels the slightest arch upward from her, bringing her magic and body heat both that extra inch closer to him.

He turns her around, then pushes her lightly toward the front door.

Sylas thinks of his palms as petricite with a disdain. He does not like to touch her outside of their trades, but sometimes the easiest way to get what he wants from her is to allow her these moments.

Lux laughs and lets herself be guided. She tips her head back to look up at him, looking pleased. "I'll see you next week."

***

He expects to next see her with a black ribbon in her hair. She is not a subtle girl. If she were, they would not need these sessions to begin with. But the ribbon is white, and today she is less inclined to draw attention to it than last time.

Sylas leans against the counter, watching her brew a pot of tea.

"And now," she is grousing, "they want to limit my schedule. _It's important that a Crownguard spend time among her family, over others._ I swear, becoming an adult is just like being a child again."

"You _are_ a child."

She brandishes a spoon at him. "Then they shouldn't be trying to marry me off, now should they?"

Sylas shrugs.

"At any rate," Lux mutters, "I am doing everything I can to sabotage this."

"Far from it."

She gives him a questioning look, but continues to hold the spoon like an active threat, as if to keep him well-behaved.

"You could run away," Sylas says, easily. "You could marry someone else. You could get knocked up. You could--"

"--Ex _cuse_ me," Lux interrupts, horrified.

"You could out yourself as a mage," Sylas continues.

Lux pauses. "I… I'm not sure that would change things. As I've been made aware, recently, this is already strategic on that matter. Auntie's doing."

Sylas can only manage a quiet "Ah."

He had known that nobles buy their own safety, and he could have guessed that with her connections, her secret would be safe. That even those with the most power do not truly believe in their own causes enough to condemn those they see as people.

That she would be off-limits to him as a mageseeker. It still leaves a bitter taste in his mouth, like learning that his perception of reality has been just a few shades wrong.

This is not a secret held between the two of them. This is not her life in his hands. Her magic is an embarrassment -- an inconvenience to her, at worst. What she keeps behind the closed doors of his home is safe behind the doors of her family, too.

Of course his home is no safe haven. Not in any way that matters.

He is too self-aware to be disgusted at his own possessiveness. The information is a surprise, but his own cruel desires that it drags up are not. He had already known. From the moment he agreed to the lessons that will one day negate her need for their trade, he had known.

It doesn't matter, he reminds himself. He'd known better, he had already made that clear. The rest of all this indulging of her is -- something to pass the time, perhaps. A hobby.

"There's this strange -- _thing_ ," Lux says, watching the tea kettle very closely, now. "It's hard to put into words. Don't think strangely of me."

"You called it strange yourself."

"The _thing_ is strange, _I_ am not."

"And what is the _thing_ in question?"

She's quiet again. "I've been thinking of the way that other people make decisions for me. It's…"

"Frustrating?" Sylas offers.

"Comforting."

He raises an eyebrow. "You expect me not to find you strange for that?"

"No, but I expect you to have the good manners not to comment as much."

"An unwise expectation."

"Apparently."

The tea kettle whistles, and Lux has to search his cupboards to find where he keeps his cups. She pours two, then brushes past him with both, leading him back to the living room. She sets both cups on the coffee table, and takes a seat at one end of the sofa.

Sylas sits beside her so he can reach his cup. He takes a cautious sip, then another. At least she has managed not to mess up tea.

Lux drinks from her own cup. She holds it over her lap and stares down at it.

"I don't want to get married to someone I don't love -- um, romantically. I do love the prince, of course, as a friend… Anyway, it isn't as if I'm saying I relish _that_ decision being taken from me. It's other things, I think."

He doesn't push, staying silent to let her continue at her own pace.

"If someone else decides for me, I don't have to be responsible. I think it's… Cowardly."

"You're self-aware, at least."

She steals a look at him, but can't hold it. "I had always liked being told what to do. To an extent. What missions to take for the Illuminators, what parties to attend. What to wear, even. Sometimes. It's like being given a check-list. You know what you're _supposed_ to do."

"Is that why you changed your mind so thoroughly after the first time? Asking me yourself to take your magic, just for the reprieve of having to deal with it."

Lux drinks her tea, very pointedly not answering.

Sylas frowns, surprised to be off-course enough to not even get a response.

Lux sets down her cup, but does not look up from the coffee table when she speaks. "I thought it would be easier to warm you to this trade than the lessons. It was a foot in the door. My magic is something I want control of at any cost."

He should be more surprised by her lie. He hadn't thought of her as a good actress by any means. Instead it just strikes him as obvious. No mage would want their magic stolen. No mage would come to him, sincerely thinking of his skin as a blessing instead of the poison that it is.

"You control it well, now."

Her shoulders sag, like she's been caught red-handed. "Well enough," she concedes.

He looks at her profile. She stares at the crackling fireplace ahead. Its light glows on her cheeks and in her eyes. Even on the wet shine of her softly parted lips, that purse after her eyes flicker briefly towards him.

Sylas doesn't like to be made a fool. For as much self-hatred as he harbors, to be manipulated and tossed to the side so easily has him feeling nauseous. Her magic inside of him feels alien, suddenly. All sharp-edges, stabbing holes in his insides, and he wants it _out_ , he wants it _gone_. She can control it herself now.

His voice wavers with his own indignation as Sylas asks, "Then why are you still here? Why continue the trades?"

She has already gotten her lessons from him, already ascertained her safety with her family. What purpose is there in coming into his home? In lighting fires in the fireplace and brewing tea for them both?

"You know why."

Her words are quiet, but swift. Like a sword struck right through a gap in his armor, they punch the breath out of him.

The momentum of his anger lost, all that's left is the ribbon around his heart, squeezing so tightly that it aches. Like it always does, it pulls taught, dragging his attention to Lux. Forcing him to be uncomfortably aware of her.

He knows. She is not a subtle girl, and she has worn her affections on her sleeve. For each time they have told one another to leave and not come back, she has been the one to try to bridge the gap. For each disagreement they have with one another, she has been the one to brush it aside first. She is the one who lingers, she is the one who stares at him, and she is the one who is stupid enough to allow feelings so foolish.

Sylas hates her for the power she holds over him. For how easily all the lies he tells himself and the things he swallows back are dredged up and illuminated clear as day.

This is what he knows: Lux is young, and she is stupid, and she loves him.

"I know better," she says, as if to reassure him.

He realizes by how well he hears her that he has leaned closer. Against his better judgment, he does not pull back away. "I'm twice your age," Sylas reminds her.

She regards him as if this is a riddle, and each tentative word that passes her lips is her uncertain answer. "So is the prince. And he's more polite."

Ignoring that comment, he adds, "I'm a lowborn man. My work doesn't negate this."

"It does as well as any soldier's job would. It's respectable work."

"It isn't. I do it anyway."

Her gaze drops. "I know."

Sylas brings a hand to her chin, touching her more carefully than he would like to admit. Her eyes flick up to his. She scans his face, searching for more clarity.

He knows better. Since he met her, he has been telling himself he knows better.

He hears her sharp intake of breath before their lips touch. The fireplace sparks and pops, but all he is aware of is the warm of her mouth. The softness of her lips that part against his as a shiver runs up her whole body.

It's been too long, Sylas thinks, if something so chaste sets fire inside him. Her light that he holds is bursting, shining into every crevice of his desperation. When he leans into her, she lets him push her back.

His hand slips around her waist, pulling her body flush against his with ease, even if it means supporting her weight at the unbalanced angle. Her fingers trace down his arms without holding, like she is not afraid to fall, like she trusts him not to let her.

She makes a startled sound at his tongue across her lower lip, but it is not a sound of displeasure. She arches up into him, opening her mouth, welcoming the intrusion. In his mind he imagines those prismatic refracting lights, shifting and moving. Warming his insides and painting them with more and more color for each moment this drags on.

When Sylas finally draws back an inch for breath, he is chased by her quiet moan of protest. She looks dizzied, her chest heaving, cheeks flushed, and swollen lips still parted in an unspoken plea.

 _Witch_ , he thinks again, helpless to keep himself from obeying.

***

He does not see Lux again for some time.

The twist of his mood is a slow and gradual thing. He knows little of her work for the illuminators, but at first he imagines that perhaps she has been made to travel. He holds onto this for weeks, his gut churning with the inkling all the while that this is not the reason for her disappearance. He tells himself the frustration is at himself for giving into a temptation. For being swayed off-course from what he knows is safe by her pliancy.

After three weeks, he finally sees her. At a different time of day than usual, and a different place. Early in the day, when the streets are busy, even in the cold. He catches sight of her from the opposite side of the road.

She looks alarmed when their eyes meet, but he cannot understand the silent plea on her face for how brief it is. Then she is looking back up to Garen, resuming conversation with ease, slipping away from his sight and disappearing again the way any other stranger on the street does.

This is the way things had been for so long. Before they had spoken -- an awareness of one another in silence, in isolation. It should not -- does not -- make him feel any sort of way.

Instead Sylas only thinks: Fine, then.

Sylas does not let himself ruminate on what he had nearly accepted beneath her light. He does not think about what he had been at the cusp of allowing from himself and from her. Lux nearly made him face what rests below the illusion of hatred for her, then vanished into thin air. She retained her control with precision, and now he knows that any excuse he could have made for her disappearance would be delusion. Denial, pure and simple.

She is just a girl. Just one of many.

And like the rest, it has been a fleeting thing. Fine then.

It is not so hard to reframe this in his mind, as he has done with all things. He has spent his life wearing the mask of a mageseeker; he is accustomed to the lies both inside and out.

There is a sense of vindication to be enjoyed, if he looks for it. A satisfaction at taking the affections and time from a Crownguard, no matter how temporarily. The niece of the Head Mageseeker. Potential consort to the prince.

Whatever lies she tells others, tells herself, and told him -- he knows that he can think of this as a fragment of revenge. A jagged, sharp, and pretty thing, held in his hands like a sword with no hilt.

He imagines that night as a blade that spills the blood of those he resents.

He imagines that night as his own blood on his hands.

But mostly, he just imagines that night.

***

It is still another week before he sees her again, and this time his mood's shift has been no slow-paced thing.

Sometimes he imagines capturing her as a mageseeker. But he knows that she is safe from this. He knows that he would never do it.

That understanding pains him all over again. The paradox of feeling as if it is a loss of control is not lost on him. When it is something he takes no joy in, something that destroys him. To capture mages is a symbol of his own cage, and now being _unable_ to is a sign of the lock she holds the key to.

But he is not a teenager. He is not a child, and in the end this is all very trite.

He sets aside the personal. He reads books about magic and petricite, and he helps keep stock of confiscated artifacts. Luca helps him, at times, apparently having proven better with numbers and writing reports than interrogations.

"Something is wrong with Mari," Luca tells him one day, looking up from his parchment.

With irritation, Sylas feels the words his eyes are scanning blur in his mind, the meaning dissipating like fog. He sets down his book. "What makes you say that?"

Luca is quiet for a moment, just long enough that Sylas begins to wonder if Mari has gotten herself caught, gotten her family caught. But Luca says, "She's upset."

Sylas releases a tension he didn't know he was carrying. "Leave your personal troubles at home. This is work."

Luca frowns, looking vaguely offended. "I only know her through work. This isn't a quarrel between friends. It's -- she's very good at capturing them. You know that?"

He does. In only a couple of weeks since her first hunt, Mari has already brought in four mages from the dregs. He has seen her in the halls with eyes as cold as steel and her lips pursed so tightly that it looks as if she'll never smile again.

"If you're trying to compete with her, you'll do better with groundwork than in the archives."

Luca rubs his forehead. "That's not what I mean to say. It's not a matter of competition. We're allies. We're on the same side of justice. I simply recognized the change in her mood and find it strange for a girl so successful, that's all."

Sylas doesn't know why he bothers to ask, "Or is it that you were accustomed to her?"

"As I said. We aren't friends. Coworkers at most."

"That's enough to have grown used to someone."

"Perhaps," Luca admits, grudgingly.

After a moment of silence, Sylas deduces that he is safe to continue his reading. He picks up his book, but has only just cracked it open when Luca speaks again.

"So what do I do to stop her?"

Annoyance wells up in Sylas all over again. "Stop her from what?"

"Hating herself."

"You can't," Sylas says, plainly. "And if you could, it would require knowing her much better than mere coworkers."

Luca looks predictably dissatisfied, but lets the matter drop.

Sylas opens his book again, but the meaning still evades him. He reads words in isolation, unable to connect them into sentences. His mind churns over the impossibility of Luca's question, instead.

He is so unfocused on his work that he does not even mind when Luca eventually interrupts once more. "I always imagined it was easier to not hate yourself when you had someone else worth hating."

There is a knock at the door before Sylas can process this.

A moment later, Lux steps inside, offering a feigned nervous smile and a small bow of her head in Luca's direction.

"Miss Crownguard," Sylas says, by way of greeting.

Luca stands up abruptly, stammering out his own anxious "M-Miss Crownguard!"

  
Sylas supposes there's no point asking how she got back into the archives like this. He imagines it's as simple for her as flashing her family crest.

She strides toward him, making it clear she is not here for the reading. She must have asked someone for his whereabouts.

Lux announces, loudly: "I wanted to apologize for missing our date."

Sylas bites his tongue. His gaze slices over to Luca, staring at both of them, wide-eyed. Sylas manages to keep his voice level with a scolding, "Luxanna."

She smiles beatifically. "Yes?"

Luca clears his throat. "Shall I… Give you some privacy?"

Sylas only grunts, but it's more than enough to motivate Luca. In an instant, he is up and out the door, closing it behind him with care.

Lux is still smiling, though it fractures when she sees the harshness of Sylas's gaze.

He does not manage to upward inflection of a question in his incredulous, "Really."

"I wanted to make it clear," Lux says easily, "That I was not avoiding you for any reasons you may have imagined. This seemed the fastest way."

"With an audience," Sylas points out.

"With an audience," Lux repeats, pleased. "I've told you, I'm making every effort to sabotage prior… Engagements."

His jaw aches for how hard he has been clenching it. "Had it progressed that far?"

Lux waves her hand dismissively. "No, not quite. But you love me for my word-play."

His lips tug down, irritation welling up so hotly in him that it heats his whole face. He scoffs, and hears her let out a puff of laughter in return.

After a long moment, he grumbles, "Then you _were_ avoiding me."

"Not necessarily," Lux says, more gently. "I told you before, my family limits what I do. It's a season meant to celebrate family. I have to negotiate single days of my freedom at a time."

There are too many things about this that frustrate him; too many angles to nitpick it from and each one that comes to his mind makes him feel more like a petulant child than the last. He is not the one between them who is supposed to feel young, let alone act it.

He swallows each complaint back, and when he looks back to Lux, he can tell from her expression that she knows. There is a patient look in her eyes, and a fondness in her weary smile.

Quietly, she tells him, "It was poor timing. I missed you."

He can't quite fathom this, though he doesn't suspect her of lying, either.

Lux clears her throat, her cheeks tingeing pink in the awkwardness of his silence. "Anyway. I just wanted to make myself clear. I've never liked lying to you, and I've no more reason to do so. I intend to continue to be public with this to keep myself from being forced to wed the prince, so if I'm wrong, you must tell me now."

That flicker of vindication returns -- that smug satisfaction. As if he's taken her away from someone. He wonders if she will always ignite that feeling in him.

Lux tilts her head to the side, her lips curling. "Speak now or forever hold your silence?"

Sylas does not say anything.

And so, looking quite satisfied with herself, Lux leaves.

***

The knots his mind had tangled itself into do not _un_ tangle, but they tighten so small that they become only bumps. They cross his mind, like interruptions to a thought, then flit away, allowing him to focus on what exists in front of him. Allowing him to slip back into the dull cycle of a life steeped in resentment.

He is no longer pretending the resentment is towards her.

***

"I brought wine," Lux says, standing in front of his door with the hood of her cloak already pulled down. Even for a girl who intends to make their relationship public knowledge, the late hour of her visit has him raising an eyebrow more than the gift.

Sylas steps aside, letting her come in. She is holding the large bottle in both hands, and so he takes her cloak off for her, hanging it up beside his own.

She gives him a quick smile before brushing by, moving towards his kitchen to get them both glasses.

"I don't drink," he points out, watching her pour a generous amount into one glass.

Lux looks up at him, then down to the glasses. "Oh," she says, then pours into the second one anyway. She hands it to him a moment later; a glass only half full.

"It's the solstice," she chides. She takes a sip of her own drink before moving to the living room, where she sits down on the floor to enjoy the fire's warmth from up close.

Sylas sits beside her. He takes in her profile; her cheeks red and hair mussed from the light snow and wind outside. There is a black ribbon in her hair, and she drinks her wine easily, as if she is well accustomed to it.

"So you were able to find time away from your family?" He asks. The small talk strikes him as foreign. It isn't a pretense he usually bothers with. Becoming invisible in this kingdom does not necessarily mean being kind.

"With great effort," Lux says, with a sigh. "But if I am able to get any night, I wanted tonight. It's the longest night of the year, you know."

Happiness is such a strange emotion. Such a light, fluttering thing. Sylas isn't accustomed to it.

Lux looks at him fondly. "Ah, you're smiling."

Reflexively, Sylas clenches his jaw and frowns.

With a light laugh, Lux scoots closer to him. She leans her body against his, tucking herself under his arm as if it's the most natural thing in the world.

The evening passes like this. Warm and comfortable -- a foreign feeling to him in his home. He drinks slowly, savoring the taste of a drink he could never afford as Lux drinks hers without a second thought. He enjoys the feeling of Lux's body pressed to his, and as he finishes a second glass, he allows himself this fondness without burying it in resentment or circumstance.

"I took up cooking, and bringing Garen lunches so that I would have an excuse to pass you by," Lux says, abruptly. Her voice has only the slightest slur to it, but he recognizes it all the same. He is always paying attention to her, after all. She adds, "It's not as if I expected you to speak to me first, either. I just didn't - I didn't know what else to do to keep seeing you. And I desperately wanted to see you."

"You're pushy," Sylas comments.

"You can call it stupid if you please. I shouldn't have put myself in the path of a mageseeker so desperately. I didn't know that my family would protect me yet… Or you."

Feeling agreeable, Sylas says, "It _was_ stupid."

"It was complicated," she says, as if to argue the point she'd given to him.

Her hand is on his, her fingers lazily tracing over the back of his hand. Her magic flows freely between them both, warm and constant; a steady stream of light like she'll never run out. He turns his hand over and allows her to lace their fingers together.

"I always feel as if you're always reaching out for me," Lux says. "When I think of it, I know that I'm the one who has done most everything to ensure we spend time together. But it doesn't feel that way. It only feels like meeting you halfway."

Sylas thinks again of girls as little doves. Clever, and needing only crumbs to keep themselves amused. Observant, and quiet, and far more persistent than they are given credit for. He realizes that he is going to have to truly grapple with loving her, someday.

But for now, on the longest night of the year, he lets her touch his skin like something worth touching. Lets her ramble on as if it is no disappointment to meet only silence and quiet grunts of acknowledgement when he has nothing to say in return.

He lets her weave herself into his home and his life and his heart, and lets her play-pretend at having things figured out. Lets them both.

**Author's Note:**

> 1) "What are you sorry for this time?" Look, it's done because I'm tired of looking at it. And I think it shows. But. Whatever.
> 
> 2) I'm going to be honest, as soon as my fingers typed the cursed words "You could get knocked up" this fic was .5 seconds from making a hard pivot to super ooc impregnation kink smut fic. Please appreciate how desperately I wrestled back control.
> 
> 3) Happy holidays…?!


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